5

I'm currently working in Canada as a Canadian citizen and planning on travelling to a few places in Europe for six weeks. I am also going to continue working remotely full time. Is there any legal problems with this that I should know about? Do I need to apply for a visa or is six weeks a small enough time that it's not necessary?

The countries I'm planning on visiting are: Greece, Croatia, Hungary, Czech Republic, and Germany. Though I might cut one or two of these to simplify things a bit

Improve this question
6
  • Where in Europe are you going? The continent contains many countries, each of which sets its own rules for whether and how much non-citizens can work while visiting. The member states of the EU and EEA allow each other's citizens to work on common (quite liberal) terms, but that does not affect you when you're not a citizen of one of those countries.
    – hmakholm left over Monica
    Commented May 29, 2016 at 0:10
  • Oops, sorry - I've edited the question to include the list of countries.
    – John Waverly
    Commented May 29, 2016 at 0:25
  • 4
    Very quietly: who will know? Who will know when you open the laptop whether you code or browse reddit? If coding, do you code for an open source project for free or code for money?
    – user4188
    Commented May 29, 2016 at 1:20
  • @chx: I'd still like to know the legal implications :) Also, good guess on me being a programmer! Yes, I code for money for a Canadian company that is ok with me doing this.
    – John Waverly
    Commented May 29, 2016 at 1:32
  • 1
    Very broadly you need an employment contract or letter of intent for a work visa with a company in the given country. Given there is no such thing.. Even more broadly, what you and I and a horde of roving digital nomads do completely falls through the cracks, the law haven't yet caught up with us and as in my previous comment, it'd be insanely hard / impossible to enforce so... why regulate? Enjoy trip in the legal grey zone! If you want to break your mind, try to apply laws to those coders who work from a cruise ship and the ports...
    – user4188
    Commented May 29, 2016 at 5:20

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
4

De jure there are dozens of complex laws and regulations regarding remote employment, under which you may or may not need a special visa in order to work in a given country. Tax laws are an additional complication, where countries such as the UK can deem you as a tax resident for spending as little as 16 days on British soil.

De facto, as long as you don't mention your remote job to immigration personnel at the airport, there's a 99.99% chance no one will ever find out. There are millions of people breaking the law by being employed at on-site jobs in any given country, so digital nomads are a pretty low priority for law enforcement.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .